Three books on a rural theme by three different publishers in a single year.
Such is the unusual distinction of Kent Meyers, a creative writing professor at
Black Hills State University in western South Dakota. Until now, Meyers has
placed his work only in literary journals and small magazines.
Meyer’s collection of essays, The Witness of Combines, is scheduled for
publication by the University of Minnesota Press in September. Coming out
simultaneously is Meyer’s first novel, The River Warren, from Hungry Mind
Press in Saint Paul. The third book, a group of short stories, tentatively
titled The Light in the Crossing, is due next spring from St. Martin’s.
"I’ve been working on something like this for 18 years," says the
42-year-old author, who grew up in rural Minnesota and now lives with his wife
and three children in the very out-of-the-way town of Spearfish, S.D. (pop.
8340).
Meyers is one of the featured authors at today’s BEA lunch. He will appear
at the booths of the University of Minnesota and Hungry Mind Press where galleys
of his novel are available.
After one of his essays appeared in an anthology published by the University
of Minnesota Press, Meyers sent a further sampling of his work to Todd Orjala,
acquiring editor for regional books at the University of Minnesota. "I was
immediately interested," recalls Orjala, who grew up on a Minnesota farm
himself.
The stimulus for the other books was ‘The Light in the Crossing," a
short story that appeared in the Georgia Review. In a biographical note
following the story, Meyers mentioned that he had finished a novel, so Hungry
Mind editor Dallas Crow wrote him, asking to see the manuscript. "We ended
up getting a stunning book," Crow recalls. "In fact, it’s our first
fiction as a press. We were looking for the right thing to make our fiction
debut."
After reading the same short story, St. Martin’s assistant editor Carrie
McGinnis wrote Meyers a letter and asked whether the writer had anything else to
show. Meyers had already submitted the novel unsuccessfully to another editor at
St. Martin’s, so his agent, Noah Lukeman,